


What A Tangled Web We Weave

by Haberdasher



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alliances, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arachnophobia, Archivist Jonathan Sims, Arranged Marriage, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Crying, Dealfic, During Canon, Elias Bouchard Being a Bastard, Eyes, Forced Marriage, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Men Crying, Minor Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas, Not Canon Compliant, POV Martin Blackwood, Pining Martin Blackwood, Season 3, Spiders, Tea, Transformation, Web Avatar Martin Blackwood, Web Martin Blackwood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: AU diverging from canon at the end of episode 92. Jon is forced into an arranged marriage by Elias; Martin does what he can to help.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 219
Kudos: 401





	1. Chapter 1

As Jon stayed behind in Elias’ office, the rest of the archives staff slowly headed back to their usual work stations, a gloomy silence filling the air as nobody was entirely willing to discuss what had just happened. Basira, lacking a work station of her own at the moment, simply flopped down on the ground, alternating between flipping through a book she had picked up somewhere between Elias’ office and the archives and engaging Daisy in whispered, furtive conversation.

Martin wondered if he was the only one whose eyes kept drifting towards the door, hoping that Jon was back at the Institute for good, that he’d be joining them in the Archives any minute now. At the very least, he certainly wasn’t the only one who was more than a bit distracted from actually getting any work done; Melanie kept looking at her phone, while Tim was at least focused on his work computer, but appeared to be playing some sort of violent video game on it, one that Martin couldn’t recognize at a glance.

The door did, in fact, open after several minutes, but Martin had to suppress a shiver as he saw that Jon was accompanied by Elias, who looked as smug as ever despite having had a gun pointed at his head only a few short minutes beforehand.

“Apparently I’ll be back here in the Archives for a bit.” Jon said abruptly. No greeting, no explanation, no pretense of being enthused about his return to the Institute. Not that Martin blamed him for that last one, really. It wasn’t exactly an ideal work environment these days, and the events of the past hour or so had made that clearer than ever.

“Oh _goodie_.” Melanie replied, the sarcasm in her reply as sharp as a knife.

“Glad to have you back?” Martin offered up, uncertainty creeping into his voice as he kept looking between Jon and Elias. If all that was going on was Jon returning to work at the Institute rather than... wherever it was he’d been staying all this time, then Jon could have broken that news himself. Elias’ presence suggested that there was more to this announcement than a simple return to work.

Tim paused his video game, but didn’t actually say anything in response to Jon’s statement, though the glare he directed at both Jon and Elias spoke volumes in and of itself.

“I haven’t told you _why_ I want you back in the building, though, have I?” Elias asked.

It was Elias’ idea. Of course it was Elias’ idea. It made sense, really, given that Elias was Jon’s boss (and boss to the rest of them, Martin supposed, at least by proxy--except Daisy, but then, where exactly she stood after all of this wasn’t entirely clear), but Martin still had to suppress a sigh upon finding that out.

The question had seemed like a rhetorical one, but Jon still responded with a soft “No, you haven’t.”

Tim finally spoke up at that. “Go on, then, boss. Enlighten us.”

(Martin wasn’t sure which had thrown more sarcasm into their voice, Tim or Melanie. Either of them could certainly give the other a run for their money.)

Though the “boss” reference left it open to either Jon or Elias, it was the latter who responded.

“Jon here will be getting married in a month.”

The look of shock on Jon’s face made it clear that this was news to him as much as to the rest of the archives staff.

The room erupted into a series of shouts bleeding into one another until they seemed to form a single cacophonous mess.

“Wait, what?”

“No, that can’t be right-”

“Why isn’t Jon the one telling us this?”

“Jon? Married? _Seriously_?”

“Who says?”

“And how does this affect the rest of us, exactly?”

Elias cleared his throat, like a schoolteacher commanding a classroom full of unruly pupils, and the room quickly settled back into silence as he spoke up again.

“We’re quickly reaching a crucial junction when it comes to keeping the state of the world as we know it intact, and we’ll need some support in order to maintain both the Institute and Jon’s position within it in the months to come. As a symbol of that support, Jon and somebody connected to one of our allies will marry one another in order to strengthen the link between us.”

A few seconds passed before anyone responded; to Martin’s surprise, it was Basira, eyes now focused on Elias rather than on the still-open book in her lap.

“What does that _actually_ mean?”

Elias sighed, but before he could respond, Jon spoke up, irritation and a strange sort of resignation both evident in his voice.

“If I’m understanding this right, it means Elias is having me married off to somebody I don’t know, who probably has some sort of powers that could kill me, as part of some supernatural alliance deal to stop the end of the world.”

“Yep, that tracks.” Tim added.

“More or less.” Elias responded. “Though there’s no need to worry about your personal safety, Jon. The whole point is that they’ll be here to help.”

“Forgive me if I’m less than overjoyed by the idea of receiving ‘help’ from some mystery person, especially given the track record I’ve got with people claiming they’re trying to help me.” Martin was pretty sure Jon’s glaring at Elias was especially pointed as that sentence wrapped up.

“Overjoyed or not, I’m afraid you’ve got no say in the matter. You _will_ be married in a month’s time. The arrangements have already been made.”

“Hang on, you can’t just _do_ that!”

Even Martin was a little surprised by how loud and passionate his voice became when he spoke up, and a few quick glances around the room revealed that he wasn’t the only surprised one.

“Just because Jon works for you doesn’t mean you can, can decide who he marries, or _if_ he marries, or, or anything to do with his personal life, for that matter! Jon’s still his own person, not just some pawn of yours!”

“Interesting phrasing there; Jon and I actually just finished a conversation about his very... _personhood._ Or lack thereof.”

 _God_ , Martin wanted to punch Elias in the face. Apparently killing him was off the table for the time being, but punching him couldn’t hurt, right?

...oh, who was he kidding? Martin wasn’t generally the one to start a fight, at least not a literal, physical one, and past experience showed that he was much less likely to be the puncher than the one being punched.

It was a nice thought, though, at least.

Elias went on. “I suppose Jon could try to object, if he so chooses, but I suspect that any such effort would end rather... messily. Besides, the Web does have its way of getting what it wants, no matter who protests about it.”

“...the Web? My... my future spouse will be connected to the Web?”

Jon looked unhealthily pale, and Martin was reminded of the arguments the two of them had had before over spiders, how Jon always vehemently defended the point of view that they were nasty little critters that deserved to be killed on sight, no matter how hard Martin tried to explain their place in the ecosystem or his personal liking of them. Martin knew most people weren’t fond of spiders in the least, but Jon... Jon seemed to have an honest-to-God phobia about them.

“Yes. They’re a powerful ally, and they’d be a powerful enemy, too; I think it’s much better to ensure they’re on our side for this operation than risk the opposite. I’m still working out the details with Annabelle Cane, though, so I’m not yet sure whether your betrothed will be Ms. Cane herself or one of her associates.”

Annabelle Cane... that name had come up in one of the statements, hadn’t it? Some arachnophobia experiment gone wrong, a uni student left with too many limbs...

One look at Jon made it clear that he’d made the same connection Martin had. He looked like he was about ready to keel over.

“Are you going to have the rest of us married off too, then?” Melanie asked; a second later, when Elias hadn’t responded, she let out a bitter laugh and added, “Don’t tell me you’re actually _considering_ it.”

“No, I don’t think so. Jon’s a bit of a special case in that regard. But if anything about the situation changes, I’ll be sure to keep you all posted.”

“You’re an asshole!” Tim said, though Martin honestly wasn’t sure whether it was related to the news about Jon’s involuntary marriage or just about... well, about everything Elias did, really.

“Duly noted. Now, unless there’s anything else...”

Elias turned away, but Jon grabbed his shoulder as he reached for the door.

“There’s nothing I can do about any of this?”

“I wouldn’t say that. You can buy yourself a tuxedo, for one thing.”

And with those parting words of wisdom, Elias Bouchard left the Archives, closing the door softly but firmly behind him.

“I... I need to sit down. Process all of this.” Sitting down was probably a good idea, given that Martin still wasn’t convinced Jon wasn’t on the verge of passing out; Jon looked positively ill, worse by far than he’d appeared during their earlier showdown with Elias, and he hadn’t been at his best then either. “I’ll be in my office, but don’t bother me unless it’s urgent, alright? I do _not_ want to talk about this.”

Jon practically stomped off to his office, slamming the door behind him and leaving an awkward silence in his wake.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually, inevitably, somebody broke the silence in the archives. Martin didn’t remember, later, who had been the first to speak, only that it hadn’t been him, that he had mostly stayed in the background and just nodded along as the others discussed both the confrontation in Elias’ office and the revelation of Jon’s involuntary marriage that followed.

As for the office confrontation, the archives staff (and Daisy, who stuck around for the rest of the day, perhaps fearing that not all the police would retreat immediately upon Elias’ command, perhaps simply wanting to be by Basira’s side) remained very divided about whether they believed Elias’ claim that killing him would lead to the deaths of all the Institute’s staff. Martin... Martin wasn’t really sure what he believed, at this point, but it wasn’t something he especially wanted to test, given the stakes involved, unless absolutely necessary. Maybe there would be a time when that bridge had to be crossed, when a breaking point came and went and their options were reduced to that one, but Martin didn’t think they were quite there yet, though admittedly things were... well, things were pretty bad right about now, to be honest.

As for Jon’s involuntary marriage, the consensus opinion seemed to be along the lines of “That poor sap” with a healthy side helping of “Glad it’s him and not me.” Martin chimed in with the bits he remembered from past statements about spiders, about the Web, and about Annabelle Cane herself, but all of this seemed only to solidify the general opinion about Jon’s fate further.

None of them actually touched their work that day as far as Martin could tell; they had greater things on their mind than researching statements that probably weren’t even true to begin with, had enough details about the supernatural to deal with before adding in names and dates and addresses of some new incident.

Jon had said to leave him alone, and the rest of the archives staff seemed to be content with taking him at his word, but Martin still remembered how Jon would avoid the rest of them back when he was still pretending not to believe in the supernatural, remembered how that lack of knowledge and connection had quickly turned to lack of trust when an unsolved murder lay at their feet. Maybe Jon thought he needed isolation, but Martin wasn’t so sure that that was what would actually be best for him.

Jon needed to know that he didn’t have to be alone if he didn’t want to be, at least. He needed to know that he had the option of reaching out, if he wanted it.

The excuse Martin used to convey this message--one he’d used time and time again, though he’d never fully registered it as an excuse when he was doing it before--was bringing Jon a cup of tea.

Martin made himself one while he was at it, less because he actually needed the tea (though he supposed it couldn’t hurt to have, and nursing it might give him a reason to stay largely silent in the ongoing conversations the others were having) than because he wanted it to seem like making Jon tea hadn’t been the whole point, that he’d just happened to be making tea for himself and thought Jon could probably use a cup while he was at it. He put Jon’s tea in one of the cheerier mugs laying around in the break room, one that was sky blue in color and covered in pastel butterflies--only after pouring the tea did he realize that mug had been Sasha’s, that using her old mug might bring up a rough subject given what they now knew of Sasha’s fate, but it was too late to switch mugs now, wasn’t it?

It was an hour or two after... after everything, when Martin cautiously opened the door to Jon’s office, two mugs of hot tea in hand, making sure to open the door only as wide as was strictly necessary for him to get by and to close it again quickly once he was through. The other assistants were still discussing their current situation, and that was a discussion that Jon didn’t need to hear right now.

There were cobwebs building up in one corner of Jon’s office, cobwebs that might or might not have been there the day before, but Martin knew better than to mention them to Jon.

“Brought you a cup of tea.” Martin said as he set Jon’s mug down on the corner of his desk, hesitating for a split second before adding, “Thought you could use one right about now.”

Jon had a tight smile on his face as he said, “Thank you, Martin,” though his voice spoke more of exhaustion than of actual gratitude.

Martin could have ended the interaction there, could have turned around and left, but that- that wasn’t enough, was it? Not to get across everything he wanted to, anyway.

“I just wanted to tell you-”

Jon shot Martin a withering look, and Martin stumbled over his speech a little; while Jon hadn’t actually _said_ that he didn’t want to talk about his situation further, his glare had gotten that point across just the same. Still, Martin pushed forward as best he could.

“I- I just want you to know I’m here for you. We all are. We’re here to help, you know? We want to help you--as much as we can, anyway.”

That was, perhaps, a bit presumptuous of Martin to say; when discussing Jon’s current predicament, none of the other archival assistants had put forth a plan to save Jon, or even just to look after him as it happened. But _he_ wanted to help, but he also didn’t want to say that he was the _only_ one who wanted to help, and the others probably did mean Jon well, really, in their own ways... though some would be more straightforward about it than others, admittedly...

(Martin thought about how Daisy had taken a sick sort of credit for leaving a mark still visible on Jon’s neck, how Basira hadn’t shown the slightest hint of surprise when Daisy had done so, how when Tim and Melanie entered neither had seemed terribly concerned about Jon’s state of being despite him clearly having recently obtained at least two painful-looking wounds...

...but he still didn’t know the circumstances behind- behind whatever it was Daisy had done to Jon’s neck, and there was a lot going on at the time besides, and- and maybe just because someone didn’t openly care didn’t mean they didn’t care in their own way, deep down.)

Jon sighed softly before responding. “That’s very kind of you, really, but I don’t think you can help me with this one. I don’t think anyone can--except Elias, I suppose, but...” Another sigh. “And like I said earlier, I _don’t_ want to talk about it. But thank you for the tea.”

Martin gulped. “You’re welcome?” He’d meant it as a statement, but it came out as more of a question. Martin felt filled with questions now, about the past and the present and the future, but none of them were ones he dared voice aloud.

Instead, Martin simply turned around and left Jon’s office with his own mug of tea still firmly in hand, making sure to close the door tightly behind him.

He honestly hadn’t been expecting that to go much better than it had in reality, but the way it had played out was disappointing just the same.


	3. Chapter 3

Nobody commented on what Martin had been up to as he returned to his desk, tea in hand. Maybe his worries about them only caring about Jon in the hypothetical were being borne out; maybe him bringing Jon tea was just such a universal constant that nobody thought it was worth examining further. Regardless, it didn’t take long for Martin to sit back and get to work.

Not work that Jon or, God forbid, _Elias_ had assigned to him, of course, but work of a sort nonetheless, and decidedly closer to the usual definition of work than the gossiping and aimless meandering that the other assistants were currently engaged in.

If Jon was going to be marrying somebody connected to the Web, to Annabelle Cane... it would probably be a good start to know what any of that actually _meant_.

Which was much easier said than done, seeing as the Institute’s files were pretty disorganized, they still had nothing even close to resembling a central database, and while there was a certain logic to it, sorting statements by date meant that looking for statements fitting a certain theme was practically a shot in the dark.

Carlos Vittery’s statement was the first relevant one Martin got his hands on--hard to forget that one, really, when investigating it had led to him being under siege by Jane Prentiss for nearly two weeks straight. It didn’t help much, though. It helped establish that supernatural spiders were a thing, sure, but details beyond that in the file were few and far between.

It took a fair bit more digging to find the statement that featured Annabelle Cane herself. That statement was unnerving, sure, but more illuminating than Vittery’s had been as well. If Martin was reading between the lines right, it seemed like there was more to what happened to Annabelle Cane, more to the power that she was now connected to, than just the spider link. The way Mr. Harlow described his hands rising seemingly of their own accord to strangle himself, the way he described everybody else on the scene besides Ms. Cane herself as seeming like they were “in a trance”... something to do with manipulation, perhaps, or with control, with making things happen regardless of the desires of everybody else involved?

Perhaps the whole arranged marriage thing had been their idea rather than Elias’, then. It did seem rather fitting, at least if Martin’s suspicions about the non-arachnid powers of the Web were on the mark.

Martin wondered, idly, if the marriage not being Elias’ idea initially would make the situation more or less palatable to Jon. Did he hate Elias more or less than he hated spiders and those connected to them?

He tried to find other statements that might be related--Martin _knew_ they’d had more than two statements with some sort of spider connection--but to no avail. It didn’t help that Martin couldn’t recall the details of any of the other statements he was after, though he knew they existed, if he could just find them in this mess that they called an archive...

After almost an hour of fruitless searching, Martin spotted a small, black spider scuttling away from an empty space in a bookshelf and burst into harsh, humorless laughter as he put the pieces together.

If the Web was about controlling people, making sure things go a certain way, and they were on their way to becoming an ally of whatever power it was that controlled the Institute (controlled Elias, controlled _Jon,_ possibly even controlled Martin himself to some extent)... well. If the Web didn’t want him to find those files, he never would, would he?

But if they were acting to make sure he couldn’t find other files related to them, that meant he’d gotten their attention, too, didn’t it? It would probably be a bad thing in most situations, for most people, to have the Web’s attention, but not here, not now, not for him. Martin was still working on forming a plan in his head, but what pieces of it he had figured out already required the Web noticing him, taking an interest in him.

So Martin returned to his work desk and his computer with no more Web-related files, but with a strange sense of satisfaction.

He searched Annabelle Cane’s name on a handful of search engines, just to see if he could find anything else about her, but the results were neither especially helpful nor especially surprising. A few newspaper articles about her supposed psychotic break, a handful of documents establishing her existence as a Surrey University student shortly beforehand, and little else. Nothing about what she might have been up to since, and precious little about what her life had been like before the incident that precipitated her connection to the Web.

Martin spent the rest of the workday surfing Wikipedia for information about spiders, but nothing explicitly supernatural. Part of it was making a point to whatever might be watching, sure, but part of it was that Martin found the information genuinely interesting, and hopping from page to page on Wikipedia was a decent enough way to kill a couple hours in a pinch. If his coworkers noticed, they didn’t blink an eye. (Any actual work could wait for tomorrow, anyway, they seemed to have all agreed in a silent pact.)

The end of the workday came soon enough, and Martin went through the motions of going home, of gathering up his belongings and heading out the door towards the meager flat that he called home, but his mind remained filled with a combination of surprising tidbits of information from Wikipedia and a plan that had begun to coalesce as he’d idly browsed the website.

So it was that, when Martin entered his flat and saw sitting upon his kitchen table a spider nearly as big as his hand--brown, hairy, with big dark eyes that Martin found oddly endearing--he let out a soft sigh and turned towards his new arachnid companion with a smile.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hello there.”

Martin’s voice came out sounding a little more tentative than he’d have liked as he eased the door shut behind him. No need to risk onlookers seeing him talking to... well, talking to what appeared at a glance to be an ordinary spider, and asking uncomfortable questions. Not that Martin was really all that worried about his neighbors noticing him, given that they’d evidently either not noticed or not cared when he’d been under siege from Jane Prentiss for nearly two weeks. (Honestly, Martin was beginning to wonder if he even _had_ neighbors, given their complete and utter lack of presence in his life...)

“I _assume_ you’re here on behalf of the Web, and I’m not just... talking to a random spider that happened to wander into my flat.” Martin let out a soft laugh at the end there. It sounded absurd, sure, but then, an awful lot of Martin’s life was pretty absurd-sounding already, so what was talking to a spider on top of all the rest?

The spider responded by jumping off the kitchen table and scuttling closer until it was within a few feet of where Martin stood.

“Right. Well. Glad we’ve got that settled.”

Martin looked up at the ceiling, half-expecting Annabelle Cane to be up there herself, just waiting for an opportune moment to drop down.

Annabelle Cane was not waiting on the ceiling of Martin’s flat.

What he saw there instead was cobwebs. A lot of cobwebs. His ceiling was literally covered in cobwebs, the layer of spiderwebs thicker at the corners but stretching to cover the entire area of the room. There were a few spiders in them, too, or at least what Martin assumed were spiders, though the ones he spotted were too small and too distant to identify with much certainty.

Martin gulped nervously as he thought again about how, as far as he knew, his neighbors hadn’t reacted in the slightest to Jane Prentiss in all her worm-filled glory standing outside the door to his flat for thirteen days, periodically knocking as worms crawled to and fro in an attempt to make their way through.

If this discussion didn’t go Martin’s way, if the spiders and their webs enveloped him for not fitting nicely into their master plan, odds were good nobody would notice until he didn’t show up to work at the Institute tomorrow, and by then it’d likely be far too late for anyone there to save him.

Martin sat down, crossing his legs as he made himself comfortable on the floor. Mostly he just wanted to get closer to eye level with the spider, especially since it felt weird looking down at it from his full height when he knew it was the one holding the power in this conversation (even though it couldn’t actually _speak_ \--could it?), but part of him was also glad to be that much further away from the mass of cobwebs on his ceiling, even though he knew it wouldn’t actually make a difference if everything went pear-shaped.

“I don’t know how much you already know about...” Martin waved his hand around vaguely in the air, the gesture covering both himself and a good portion of his flat. “All of this. I mean, I know you know a lot in general, even though knowing isn’t really your _thing_ , is it...”

The spider twitched a few legs in a way that Martin didn’t know how to interpret, though his mind was quick to come up with possibilities, most of them broadly negative in nature.

“I’m sorry, I know I’m rambling, I’m- I’m dancing around it, I guess, I thought I knew what I was going to say and now it’s all gone to pieces, hasn’t it...” Martin summoned up a weak smile as he added, “Feel free to jump in, of course. If, if you can. Don’t mean to speak over you.”

The spider either couldn’t or wouldn’t enter the conversation in terms of actual words, but it did sink closer to the ground, which... looked like a good sign? Maybe it was relaxing, or that was the spider’s equivalent of sitting down like he had?

Martin needed to read up on spider body language. Provided that he survived this conversation, of course.

After a period of time lapsed that was long enough for Martin to figure that if the spider was going to actually speak up, somehow, it would have done so already, he cleared his throat and started over, to an extent.

“I don’t know what _you_ know, exactly, but _I_ know you’re making some sort of deal with the power that controls the Institute. _Elias_ -” God, Martin hoped his contempt for the man shone through in his tone of voice there. “-told the archives staff about it, how you guys and whatever controls the Institute are supporting each other, that he’s having the Archivist married off to somebody from your little group to show it.”

Martin had struggled to keep his voice calm and level at the end there, because he still stood by what he’d said to Elias about it back when the topic had first been breached, that Jon was more than just a pawn in whatever game was being played here and that Jon had a right to decide who he was marrying for himself, but making that opinion obvious to the ones who likely had made that decision on Jon’s behalf in the first place... well, it’d probably be a good way to make sure he got enveloped by that mess of spiderwebs on his ceiling.

“So I heard that, and I did some research, and, well...”

Martin gulped nervously. This was it, then. No going back from what he was about to say. One way or another, his life was about to change course tonight.

“I think I’d like to join you.”

The big brown spider inched closer to Martin, and he could swear he heard other spiders scampering about on his ceiling, even though the handful he’d noticed before were small and not terribly close by, and spiders weren’t exactly known for heavy footsteps...

Martin held up a single finger. “Under one condition.”

The spider closest to Martin stopped a few inches away from where he was seated, and the noise, real or imagined, that he’d heard coming from the ceiling faded away.

“I...”

Martin gulped again, but this time it wasn’t out of nervousness, not exactly. Oh, sure, there was some of that too, if the spiders didn’t like his condition things could still go badly, but it was more than that. What he was really struggling with was that he was about to state his own deep-seated desires, clearly and plainly, and advocating for himself straightforwardly like that had never exactly been Martin’s strong suit.

Maybe joining the Web might give him a few pointers in assertiveness.

(Maybe joining the Web might ensure he wasn’t trapped in the mass of spiderwebs looming above him.)

“I want to be the one that Jon marries.”

Martin had tried to justify even this request as a selfless thing in his mind, tried to rationalize that Jon would prefer him as a marital partner over someone he’d never met that embodied one of his deepest phobias, even figured that perhaps he’d be saving some poor lackey of the Web from being part of a marriage they didn’t want either, but he knew better, deep down.

Martin knew that the real reason he’d decided on this course, on this path and this condition for it, was because he wanted Jon to be married to _him_ , not to some stranger. He’d had feelings for Jon for... for a while, now, but even without the arranged marriage already thrown into the mix, this was the only way it’d work out, wasn’t it? Jon didn’t feel that way about him, obviously--sometimes Martin felt like he barely even counted as Jon’s _friend_ , let alone a potential partner--and the only way that might change is if he was forced into it, if they married and the feelings came later.

Martin just had to hope that those feelings would be of the romantic sort and not, say, resentment or fury or hatred.

It was a gamble, sure, but a gamble was better than no chance at all.

“That’s my offer. If you work with my plans, I’ll work with yours. You do like plans, right?”

The spider looked up at Martin for a long moment, eight eyes boring their way into two, before bobbing its head... nodding, perhaps? Was that supposed to be a nod there?

“Is... is that a yes? We’re agreed, then?”

The spider’s head-bobbing grew faster and more energetic, and it extended one of its front limbs towards Martin.

Martin let out a shaky laugh as he felt a strange, stupid grin sneaking onto his face. “Sure, let’s shake on it.”

Even though the spider was definitely large by spider standards, it was still so much smaller than Martin that one of his fingers was plenty big enough to grasp the spider’s extended leg. He went with his little finger, which made it feel a bit like making a pinky swear back in primary school, but not in a bad way, really.

Martin could swear that he felt every single one of the little hairs on that spider’s leg as it brushed against his pinky finger.

Then the spider brought its leg back down, and Martin sat there for a moment longer, unsure whether there was something else he had to do now, or whether he should just start to get up and get on with things...

Martin didn’t see the spider lunge forward until it had already bitten him, its fangs sinking into his still-extended pinky finger, and he could feel a cool venom surge through him immediately, stopping him from letting out all but the smallest and most truncated cry of pain, sending him sprawling onto the floor, unable to move a muscle, unable to look away from the mass of spiderwebs on his ceiling and the many, many spiders that were beginning to emerge from it.


	5. Chapter 5

Martin might have said that the strangest part about the transformation was that it didn’t hurt, but that would have been inaccurate in more ways than one.

For one, the initial spider bite _did_ hurt, after all, it stung like hell as the cool venom first entered his body, and his body ached as it toppled unceremoniously onto the floor of its own accord, though that pain was quickly replaced by a vast, all-consuming numbness.

For another, claiming that that was the strangest part of the transformation would have been glossing over every other part of what was just generally speaking a very strange process.

As Martin lay sprawled out on the floor, unable to move, his eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, and he saw the spiders emerge en masse, even tried counting them before quickly getting overwhelmed. There were dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of them, far more than Martin would have guessed could be hiding in his own fairly small flat.

And Martin watched as every one of the spiders headed right for him, climbing atop his immobile body and getting to work.

There was no way they should have been able to spin spider silk as fast as they did, even given the sheer number of spiders working together, but then, these weren’t normal spiders, after all, and Martin supposed that meant they didn’t have to abide by the rules of normal spider biology, either. (Martin remembered, dimly, interviewing a man who’d rambled about spiders doing things that weren’t biologically possible in between violent sobs; Martin wondered, distantly, if it had really been a coincidence that that particular bit of research had been assigned to him back then.) Martin didn’t have any way to keep track of time, but by his best guess it was only a matter of a few minutes before the spiders’ webs covered his entire body.

Martin could feel each and every one of the spiders skittering around on top of him, was all too aware of the ones that evaded his static field of vision. Their legs tickled as they brushed against him, even when they were no longer touching him directly, even when their footsteps were placed on top of spider silk. His whole body started to fill with a pins-and-needles sort of sensation, too, like when you cut off the circulation on a limb and then when you try to move it it won’t quite move right, doesn’t even entirely feel like it’s yours, except it wasn’t just one limb, it was everywhere, covering every inch of his body.

Also, between the chilly venom coursing through his veins and the cool tile floor seeping away what body heat he still had, Martin was freezing. He would’ve shivered, if he could have; instead, he just wished he’d collapsed in one of the rooms that had a carpet draping the floor instead.

As the spiders finished up their web, they left holes through which Martin could breathe, but even his eyes became covered by their newly-made webs, his view of the ceiling replaced by darkness, though he could still see enough to see the off-white color of the substance that surrounded him.

The spiders kept moving after he was fully covered, kept dancing along to a pattern only they knew, and several times Martin felt a slight shock, like static electricity zapping him over and over, when their legs landed upon him. Martin tried to logic his way through what was happening, tried to figure out if there was some rationale behind when and where he was getting shocked, but if there was a method to the madness, he couldn’t find it.

In a way, those little static shocks were reassuring, because it meant Martin could still feel something beyond the numbness and the tingling and the pins and needles that still covered his entire being.

Martin wasn’t sure how long he lay there, cocooned in spider webbing, immobile and seeing nothing but a field of off-white. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours. It felt like an eternity.

But eventually, the spiders went from simply climbing atop Martin to slowly, carefully, taking apart the webbing they had so meticulously spun minutes hours an eternity ago.

They started by the hole that Martin had needed to breathe, and as that hole grew he could see the spiders, first out of the corner of his eye and then growing closer and closer, and he knew he should be terrified of all this. A small part of him was scared, truth be told, but mostly out of concern that one of the spiders might lose their footing and fall through the hole and onto his nose or mouth, which would likely end unpleasantly for the both of them, true, but that probably wasn’t what most people would be afraid of after being wrapped in a layer of spider silk that was only removed when the spiders themselves decided it was time.

But after all, Martin had always liked spiders.

He’d even named the one residing in his closet. Was that spider there still? Was little George an agent of the Web all this time, or was it a coincidence, that he’d joked to himself about having a spider as a roommate before? Or was it neither--had he become entangled with the Web specifically because he was the kind of person who, upon finding a spider spinning a web in the corner of his closet, decided to name it George and make it his honorary roommate?

The world seemed awfully bright as it began to emerge into view once more, but that could have been Martin’s eyes just having adjusted to the dim light that seeped through spider’s silk. Even with his sight restored, though, Martin couldn’t move his eyes away from the ceiling, where it seemed like there were even more cobwebs than the mass of them he’d seen earlier, somehow, covering nearly every bit of wall and ceiling within his range of vision.

Was that... _sanitary_? Removing the spiderwebs entirely was probably out of the question at this point, but he wasn’t going to get his neighbors sick by having his flat like this, was he? They may not have done much to help him out before--if they even _existed_ , which he still wasn’t sure about--but that didn’t mean he wanted them to get caught up in this, didn’t mean he wanted them to suffer because of him.

Looking into that would be a problem for another day, though. Or at least for a time when he could actually get to his computer and do some research, instead of laying on the floor, waiting for the last of the spiders to retreat...

The spiders did remove the last of the spider silk and retreat, slowly but surely, and the pins-and-needles sensation left with them, leaving Martin feeling very cold and very alone and a little silly just lying there on the floor of his flat, staring at the cobweb-covered ceiling.

Martin’s whole body was shaking as he forced himself to sit up, then pushed himself off the floor. Everything still seemed too bright, even though he only had the one light on and the sun had long since set (what time was it, anyway? how many hours had passed? it had to have been hours, because it felt far too long for mere minutes but it- it couldn’t have been _days_ , could it?), and Martin’s shaking quickly turned to shivering as leaving the floor didn’t warm him up nearly as much as he’d hoped. He looked over at a blanket that he’d left on the couch, imagining the warmth he’d feel while wrapped up within it, before his wandering eyes found something else to focus on.

Martin turned his gaze towards his hands, his heart sinking as he did.

They looked normal, really. Part of him had expected them to be- to be made of spiderwebs or something now, but they were the same as always, more or less. Big, fleshy, clumsy, with bitten-down nails and ripped cuticles. There was the minor matter of a new mark on his pinky finger, where the spider had bitten him earlier, and that almost certainly wasn’t a coincidence, but that wasn’t what had caught Martin’s eye so easily.

No, what had caught his eye wasn’t his hands, exactly, but the dozens, even hundreds of strings extending out from them.

No, not strings-- _threads_. Threads that, though Martin didn’t dare touch them, he was certain were spun of spider’s silk. Connections, of some kind, perhaps? If so, he must be connected to more... people? things? both? than he’d realized.

Then he turned his hands slightly, and the threads disappeared from view, as easily as if they’d been a mere trick of the light.

They hadn’t been, though. Martin was sure of that much.

Instead of going straight for the blanket he’d been eyeing, Martin stumbled his way into the bathroom and turned on the light, instinctively squinting and raising one hand to his forehead because even now, even after his eyes had had plenty of time to adjust to being able to see his flat once more, that light was still awfully bright, almost painfully so, even as he took measures to block out the worst of it.

As Martin looked in the bathroom mirror, it became clear at a glance why lights that had been normal enough for him before were so uncomfortably bright to him now.

For one thing, his eyes were dark all over, an inky off-black hue filling them from lid to lid.

For another thing, there were eight of them there.

Maybe he should have seen it coming, should have realized why things seemed so off, should have noticed... well, he definitely noticed them now, at least...

Martin’s eyes started watering at the sight of it, and that just made it worse because _all eight of his eyes were watering_ , and he did _try_ not to cry, he really did, but even as his sight blurred he could see tears welling up in eight distinct places, and somehow this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, this was what made it all a bit much for him to handle...

Martin ended up curled up against his bath mat, sobbing into a rust-colored towel, and the only consolation he had was that this wasn’t happening at the Institute, that there wasn’t a tape recorder in sight, that the only ones who had to know about this moment were him and the spiders lurking in the corners of his walls.


	6. Chapter 6

Martin called in to work the next day, told Elias he wasn’t feeling well.

It wasn’t a lie, even, not exactly. Martin felt off, felt tired, felt vaguely queasy; he wasn’t sure whether if he got properly sick he’d let out half-digested food or just spider silk, and he definitely didn’t want to find out the hard way in the archives.

But also, he wanted to put off going back to the archives as long as possible, especially as long as he looked like _that_.

Martin briefly considered wearing a very carefully-positioned face mask 24/7; it wasn’t as if the archives staff ever got dress-coded for such things, after all. (They’d turned it into a game, back when everything to do with the archives still felt new and exciting, when not being fired for such things was a relief rather than a prison; Sasha had worn an old historical re-enactment outfit, Tim had worn a sexy Halloween costume which was definitely intended for a different demographic of wearer, and Martin, after moving into the archives, had worn brightly-colored footy pajamas for a week straight, and Elias didn’t say a word to any of them about it.) But he didn’t actually own any appropriate masks, and besides, trial runs with an old shirt revealed that having fabric pressed up against his eyes was decidedly unpleasant.

Until it wasn’t, anyway. Until it very suddenly wasn’t, until he stopped feeling the slight twitching of his eyes moving even under firmly closed eyelids and the pressure of the fabric weighing upon such delicate tissue, until it seemed like someone had used a dimmer switch on the world...

Martin rushed to look in the mirror, feeling a bit silly as he saw himself wearing an old shirt as the most makeshift of face coverings, like a schoolkid who wanted to explore what would happen if people wore clothes _this_ way instead-

But when he removed the shirt from atop his head, the eyes were gone--not just closed, but _gone_ , with no sign that they had ever been there in the first place.

Well, the six extra eyes were gone, anyway. His two original eyes were still there, the ones that he wanted to think of as his normal eyes, except that they were still an inky off-black all over, and that wouldn’t do.

Maybe... maybe he could just wear sunglasses all day long, even inside the archives? It’d be easier than covering the majority of his face to hide six extra eyes, at any rate...

But no, if all this could _change_ , if he could will away his extra eyes by just ignoring them hard enough, then who was to say that he couldn’t will his eyes back to looking normal while he was at it? Maybe he could hide this entirely. Maybe he could make this work without everybody he came across knowing he was some sort of- of eldritch monstrosity now just by looking at him.

Martin stared at his own reflection in the mirror, stared at his own eyes, pouring every ounce of willpower he could muster into turning them human-looking once more, bringing back the whites of his eyes and the brilliant hues that had been consumed by inky darkness...

A minute or two went by as Martin kept examining his own reflection, and nothing seemed to be changing, and he was about to give up and see what he had in the way of sunglasses when...

...when it _worked_.

For a moment, there, he looked right again, his eyes appearing the same as always, normal and human and definitely not the organs of some freaky spider being-

Then he tried a bit too hard to look closer, to make sure his eyes looked exactly the same as usual, and a split second later, just as he was beginning to let out a soft sigh of relief, Martin found himself having _eight_ human-looking eyes on his face.

Martin balled up the shirt he had been using and threw it at the bathroom mirror, muttering an expletive under his breath as it bounced off of the mirror, rammed into his knees, and crumpled to the floor around his legs.

The next few hours were a blur of staring into the mirror and trying to will his eyes into cooperating, and by the end of the day Martin felt fairly confident that he’d be able to handle going into the archives tomorrow... though maybe he’d bring a pair of sunglasses, just in case.

Truth be told, though, while Martin did call in to work, it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that he didn’t visit the archives that day.

He hadn’t meant to do it. He hadn’t even known it was something he could _do_ now. Martin had just been idly considering what chaos and drama must be continuing to unfold within the archives in his absence, thinking about how unfair it was that he couldn’t be there right now, that he had made his deal to become Jon’s betrothed and yet he was stuck here in his flat while even _spiders_ got to watch Jon go about his business from the cobwebs growing in his office...

And without warning, the world shifted around him.

It took Martin a moment to adjust, to comprehend what he was seeing. It all seemed disjointed at first, with everything being so huge, a world of vast wooden towers and solid off-white cliffs as far as the eye could see... and then it all clicked, and Martin realized that he was in Jon’s office back in the archives, just a very _big_ version of Jon’s office.

Or rather, Martin determined as he looked down at himself and saw several pitch-black legs with thick webbing draped across them, Jon’s office was its normal size, and what had changed was that _he_ was very small.

While Martin knew a decent amount about spider anatomy, especially thanks to his recently reading quite a few Wikipedia pages related to the subject, he didn’t actually know how to make himself move with eight legs. But once the thought occurred to him, the movement came naturally enough, and he skittered across the office and onto Jon’s desk without any difficulties.

Jon... didn’t look so good. Maybe it was because of the angle, because of the size difference, because every little blemish was blown up and all too easy to spot now, but Martin could swear the bags under Jon’s eyes had grown bigger, though how that was even possible he couldn’t say. His brow was furrowed as he stared at his computer monitor, but the glare was too bright for Martin to tell what exactly was on the screen. Some sort of research, almost certainly, but beyond that was only guesswork.

As Martin moved around trying to get a better angle to look at Jon, Jon’s gaze moved away from the computer screen until his eyes met Martin’s own.

Martin froze then, froze and waited for the worst, because he knew what Jon did to spiders, knew well the fate that now awaited him.

But Jon just stared at him for a long, long moment before letting out a soft sigh and saying almost under his breath, “Go away.”

Martin, naturally, had no intentions of doing so, and responded by staying resolutely in the same spot and standing tall--well, as tall as present circumstances allowed, which wasn’t very.

Jon pressed one hand against his temple. “I know, I’ll have to deal with you eventually, but can’t I at least have the rest of the month to myself first?”

Martin considered his options before heading towards the computer keyboard. He very much doubted he’d be given the opportunity to write anything using it, and even if he did he wasn’t sure what he’d write, but it was better than just standing there, unable to communicate at all.

As Martin climbed atop the space bar, Jon let out another, longer sigh and said, “Well, I tried asking nicely...”

Martin knew what was coming the moment the world around him was covered in shadow, but still he looked up to confirm it, to see Jon’s hand rapidly rushing towards him, preparing to squish this spider like any other-

And then Martin was back in his flat, back in his own body, heartbeat racing and breaths coming quick and loud as he processed that he wasn’t going to die, at least not right this minute by Jon’s hand...

But even if he’d managed to get his eyes more or less under control, Martin was still connected to spiders deep down, was linked to the Web and its minions to his very core now.

And now more than ever, Martin knew what Jon did to spiders...


	7. Chapter 7

Martin slept well that night.

He wasn’t expecting to, really. When he put his head against the pillow, he was fully expecting a night filled with tossing and turning and nightmares and very little in the way of actual sleep. But both that night and the one before, once he made the decision that it was time to go to bed he was out like a light, lost in dreamless sleep, and before he knew it it was morning.

Part of Martin wondered if this had to do with his new connection to the Web somehow. Part of Martin wondered if it was just because he really needed the rest. Part of Martin wasn’t quite willing to look that particular gift horse in the mouth just yet.

He didn’t feel quite as, well, _off_ as he had the day before when he woke up, either, and Martin figured it was probably time for him to head back to the Institute. No use putting things off any further, delaying the inevitable and risking seeming all the more suspicious because of it. Besides, he did still have a job to do... even if that job wasn’t nearly as mundane as he’d thought when he’d first signed on.

Martin was nervous on his way to the Institute, scared even, but that wasn’t really new. The specific cause was, sure, but he’d been scared of _something_ ever since Prentiss trapped him in his flat, and probably even earlier than that if he was being entirely honest with himself. At least now the fear and anxiety had a clear rationale behind them, had a single cause he could focus on dealing with as best he could.

He’d picked his nails half to shreds by the time he made it through the front door of the Institute, but Martin was pretty sure his eyes were two in number and human-looking in appearance, that nobody was staring at him any more than usual, and that was more important right now than having intact fingernails.

Jon was tucked away in his office again, or so it looked from a glance towards the place to see the door to it closed and light peeking out from the gaps between door and frame. Martin wanted to try to draw him out of there, to give him comfort and reassurance, but he didn’t entirely trust himself to do so without something going terribly wrong, at least not yet. Maybe later he could just so happen to make himself and Jon a cup of tea and use that as an excuse to stop inside again, but for now...

For now, he had work to do.

Martin wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, or if it was because of the day that passed without him in the Archives, or if it was because of his return to the Archives now, but the other archival assistants (including Basira, whose set-up was still a little haphazard, but was a fair sight better than sitting on the floor now; Daisy was nowhere to be seen, and Martin rather preferred it that way) were a lot quieter now than they were two days ago. No open-ended speculation about whether Elias’ claims were true, no discussion of Jon’s fate. Melanie was actually doing some research, by the looks of it, while Basira had another book open at her new desk, and Tim was playing a _different_ violent video game on his work computer.

 _Was_ being the operative word there; as Martin booted up his own computer, he saw Tim pause his game before strolling over to him.

“Martin, can we talk?”

Martin shrugged. “Sure?”

Tim looked around the archives before adding, in a slightly lower voice, “I mean, can we talk _alone?_ ”

Martin gulped nervously. While he didn’t know exactly what Tim wanted from him, his mind jumped to the worst easily enough, and it being something that he wasn’t willing to say within earshot of the other archival assistants definitely wasn’t a _good_ sign. “Y-yeah, sure.”

They followed the path together, no words needing to be exchanged beforehand; this wasn’t the first time Martin and Tim had wanted to speak without others overhearing them, and they’d identified one particular document storage room that went almost entirely unused some months back for that purpose. (Though back then if they couldn’t talk in the Archives, it was because they were avoiding _Sasha_ \--Sasha, whose death still felt like a freshly opened wound--and that memory sent a pang of loss coursing through Martin.)

As Tim closed the door behind him, Martin leaned against a pile of old boxes, though he regretted the move almost immediately as a cloud of dust emerged from the boxes with his touch and he had to fight to stifle a sneeze. “What did you want to talk about?”

Tim laughed a little, and that should have helped, should have eased the tension at least a bit, but the laugh was short and bitter and Martin didn’t trust it even slightly.

The pause between Tim’s laugh and his actual response to Martin’s question must have taken only a few brief seconds, but in Martin’s mind, that period of uncertainty and unease dragged on much longer.

“Did you really take a day off work just because your crush is getting married?”

Once Martin finished processing the question being asked of him, he couldn’t help but burst into laughter, even though it just made the fire in Tim’s eyes burn brighter.

“ _That’s_ what this is about? Seriously?”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Why, what did you _think_ this was about?”

“...nothing.”

“Right. Look, I thought you were still all gung-ho about working here. Did you change your mind about all that, or are you really just that taken with Jon?”

“I...” Martin had been prepared for a few different ways this conversation could go, but this fit none of them, and now he was left grasping at straws. “Neither, I guess?”

“Then why didn’t you come in to work yesterday, hmm?”

“I didn’t feel well.” Technically true, that, the best kind of true. “Might’ve had some sort of 24-hour bug, I’m better now.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, so you _just happened_ to fall ill yesterday.”

Martin threw his hands in the air. “Yes! Why is that so suspicious?”

“Because you’re back now, not at all worried about being contagious, the very next day.”

It took Martin a moment to put together the pieces, to remember the time he’d chewed out Sasha (... _was_ that Sasha? Martin didn’t know for sure, couldn’t remember the timing well enough) for coming into work after taking two days off for a cold and returning while she still had a slight sniffle, how he’d gone on a rant about how easily germs could spread in an office environment, but once he realized what he’d done Martin could feel his stomach sinking until it seemed like it must be resting somewhere around the floor.

“Maybe it wasn’t a bug, actually-”

“If you’re trying to avoid this place, trust me, it’s not that easy. But if you’re just trying to avoid _Jon_ -”

Martin could feel his face growing pink and hot. “It’s not like that!”

“If you say so.”

“It’s not, I swear it’s not-”

And then Tim’s eyes went wide and he started backing away, and Martin didn’t know why until he realized that the room definitely hadn’t been this bright when he’d entered, and he could see the cobwebs in the corners more clearly now-

 _Shit_.

“Tim?”

Tim kept his eyes fixed on Martin as he reached for the doorknob, only breaking eye contact once the door was flung open and he began running past it into the hallway beyond. Martin followed, but if he tried chasing after Tim Martin would likely end up losing the chase, and then he’d end up parading through the Archives looking like- like _this,_ and everything would just unravel that much faster...

Better to try using his words, then. Maybe he could still talk Tim out of doing anything too drastic.

“Tim, _stop_!”

Tim went from sprinting away from Martin to practically screeching to a halt on a dime in a motion that looked more like something out of a cartoon than something unfolding in real life. It was almost comical, how quickly he stopped in his tracks when Martin said the word. Almost.

“Tim...”

Martin approached Tim, who was standing still in the middle of the hallway now, not moving an inch from where he’d been when Martin had called out to him. Martin circled around until they were face to face again, halfway between the archives proper and the room where their conversation had begun.

“Please don’t- don’t tell anyone about this. Don’t tell _Jon_ about this, especially. _Please_. I know it looks bad, and it, it kind of _is_ bad I suppose-” Martin let out a soft, bitter laugh. “But I want the time to figure this out myself, handle it on my own terms, alright?”

Martin looked into Tim’s eyes, which looked strangely unfocused, as if he were looking through Martin instead of at him. For a moment Tim didn’t respond, and Martin held his breath as he waited...

“Fine, sure, I won’t tell anyone.” The bitterness in Tim’s voice was audible, but Martin still let out a sigh of relief. “But if you go around looking like _that_ , I doubt me keeping mum will help much.”

“Right, right, yeah.” Martin concentrated, thought back to those hours spent staring at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, and the world grew dimmer and his peripheral vision shrank away as he willed eight eyes back into two. “There we go. Now, can we talk about this?”

Martin blinked a few times before realizing that his vision wasn’t failing him, that Tim really was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he’d taken the time Martin had used to adjust his appearance to run off to who-knows-where.

Martin sighed again. “Tim?”

No response came as Martin made his way down the hallway.

“Tim, I’d like to talk. Tim!”

Even once he reached the main part of the archives, Tim wasn’t there, wasn’t waiting at his desk as Martin had expected, his video game still paused on the same screen as before.

As Martin made his way back to his own desk, Melanie asked, “Looking for Tim?”

Martin tried to summon up a grin, though he wasn’t sure how successful he was on that end. “That obvious?”

“Well, you were practically yelling his name just now-”

“Right, uh, about that-”

“But he just ran off. Literally. Looked a little like a deer in headlights when he was at it.” Melanie paused, clearly hesitating before asking, “What was it you needed from him, anyway?”

Martin let out a laugh that he hoped sounded less bitter than it felt, shaking his head as he replied, “Nothing, actually. Nothing at all.”


	8. Chapter 8

Martin tried to get on with his work and ignore everything else, ignore that Tim was obviously avoiding him after their little confrontation, ignore the bigger confrontation that had happened two days ago, ignore the predicament Jon had been stuck in ever since...

It wasn’t much of a surprise, really, that Martin’s attempts to shut out the world and be productive weren’t exactly a success. There was too much else going on to focus on tracking down information from a statement that probably wasn’t even true, that probably wasn’t nearly as supernatural as Martin’s very job (or the individual now doing it) had proven to be...

Two hours into pretending like everything was normal with only a sentence and a half of a report to show for it, Martin sighed and got up from his seat.

It was time for a tea break.

Which meant that, once he finished preparing the tea (which didn’t take all that long, even though he tried dragging it out as much as he could without wasting tea or breaking something in the process), it was time to go visit Jon, tea in hand.

Martin was so focused on his eyes, on looking normal for Jon’s benefit, that he half-stumbled as he placed Jon’s mug of tea upon his desk, a few drops spilling onto both the desk itself and the large piles of papers stacked upon it.

(Well, for better or for worse, Martin spilling tea wasn’t actually that far from normal, though he usually tried to be more careful, especially around the mass of papers Jon always managed to accumulate.)

“S-sorry... napkins, please?”

Jon sighed as he opened a desk drawer and threw a heap of napkins onto the desk, far more than would actually be needed for the small spill. (Jon’s hidden stash of napkins had come to Martin’s attention the first time he’d spilled tea in Jon’s office; where he got them all from Martin had no idea, but Jon never seemed to run out of napkins, though they never all matched up when he grabbed a handful from his desk.)

“Do try to be more careful, Martin.” The words were harsh, but Jon’s voice sounded more exhausted than actually annoyed with him. “You could have broken my computer even more, and then I’d just get another reaming out from IT.”

“Sorry, I’ll try, I just... wait, you said your computer’s broken? How’d that happen?”

“The space bar broke on me yesterday afternoon. IT said they’d get around to checking it out as soon as possible, but I don’t think the Archives are the top of their priorities list, especially after all the trouble they went through with Sasha...” Jon paused before adding, “No, with- with _not_ Sasha.”

Martin gulped, tried not to think too hard about how some monster had been impersonating one of his coworkers for months without him knowing, only succeeding in focusing elsewhere because he managed to derail that unpleasant train of thought with another.

Jon said his space bar wasn’t working, but hadn’t specified why; Martin remembered one incident involving Jon’s office, and the space bar of Jon’s computer in particular, that seemed like a likely enough cause of the problem.

And it was natural enough to be curious about that, right? Shouldn’t be too odd to ask about it, especially since the way Jon shrunk down in his seat after referring to “not Sasha” suggested he, too, would rather not dwell on that particular topic, would rather the conversation focus on something else.

“...d’you know why your space bar broke in the first place?”

The hesitation before Jon’s response was enough to confirm Martin’s suspicions in and of itself.

“...there was a spider on it. Swatted the spider, broke the space bar.”

“Jon...”

“Don’t say it.”

“Fine, but you know I’m _thinking_ it.”

Jon let out a long sigh. “If all your talk about being nice to spiders hasn’t gotten to me by _now_ , why do you expect this time to be any different?”

“Because it’s a bit more relevant now, isn’t it?” Martin didn’t quite think through his words before they came out, but once they did, he decided to stick to his guns; no use ignoring the elephant in the room forever. “It sounds like you’ll have to get used to them being around soon enough. Might as well accept it.”

“Perhaps the _spiders_ will just have to get used to _me_.”

“I don’t think it works like that, Jon.”

“Well, maybe it _should_.”

Martin thought for a moment, trying to think of what he could say to protect the spiders without being too suspicious in the process, to defend the beings he now felt a deep connection to without giving away that very connection.

Even Martin himself hadn’t entirely expected his eventual reply before he managed to spit it out.

“Have you ever considered exposure therapy?”

“Exposure therapy?” Jon echoed, his tone hard to read.

“You know, that thing some therapists do where they expose you to something you fear little by little-”

“Yes, Martin, I know what exposure therapy is. I just...” Jon paused for a second before continuing. “Even if it might help, what would I tell them? ‘Hello, nice to meet you, now I’ve got a deep phobia of spiders for reasons I absolutely refuse to tell you, but I need to get over it quick because I’m getting married to a spider person in a month whether I like it or not, because my boss said so’?”

Martin could feel the color draining out of his face.

“I mean, you could just...” Martin waved his hand around in a vague and aimless gesture. “Not give any details. Or, you know, _lie_.”

Jon shook his head. “I see where you’re coming from, I do, but I just don’t think it’s worth it. But thank you, Martin. Thank you for the tea.”

The thanks sounded genuine that time, actual gratitude rather than a phrase parroted back at him just because, and as Martin left Jon’s office, he supposed that was at least something of a good sign there.

Better than the last time he’d brought tea, anyway. There was something to be said for small victories.


	9. Chapter 9

Martin managed to be a bit more productive work-wise after his tea break than he had been beforehand, though that wasn’t saying much. Every once in a while he’d look up from where he was staring at his computer monitor and glance around to see if Tim had returned while he wasn’t looking, and every time Tim remained nowhere to be seen.

That was... a problem, and one he would probably have to deal with sooner rather than later, but he couldn’t very well do much about it when Tim wouldn’t even be in the same room as him.

By the time Martin went home at the end of the day, he still had yet to see Tim, and part of him worried about it. What if something had happened to Tim, if he’d ran from Martin only to fall victim to some greater terror? What if the last time he’d ever see Tim would be when he was frozen in fear as Martin begged him not to tell anybody else what he’d become?

Or what if Tim was just freaked out by having a spider monster as a coworker, as most people naturally would be, and everybody else he knew would likely act the same once the truth came out? Everyone he knew, everyone he cared about, avoiding him at all costs, any personal connection they might have had irreversibly severed after they found out what he was now?

And they _would_ find out eventually. Even if Tim stayed true to his word and kept schtum, even if Martin managed to not let the truth slip out to anybody else... assuming his deal wasn’t made in vain, his wedding to Jon would be in a month’s time (or a few days less than, now), and there’d be no hiding that he was connected to the Web after that.

Was it better to break the news slowly and cautiously over time, or to enjoy what peace he could before everything inevitably came crashing down around him?

...this was going to be a long month.

At least his sleep was peaceful enough once again, even if Martin almost wished for a night of tossing and turning just so he could put off the inevitable that much longer.

Tim was in his normal spot when Martin arrived in the Archives the next morning, which did reassure him that the worst hadn’t happened to him yet, but he could practically feel Tim’s glare burning into him, and when Martin got up to look for a file he needed for his research he wasn’t terribly surprised to find that Tim was gone by the time he returned.

Martin tried not to let Tim’s absence bother him too much, tried to get on with business as usual; after all, he knew well enough that hunting Tim down for a conversation would likely be counterproductive and might well lead to Tim lashing out at him. He didn’t search the far corners of the Archives for Tim’s presence, didn’t make any trips through the building that weren’t strictly necessary for work purposes. If Tim needed time to himself, so be it.

...alright, Martin supposed that technically, his trip to the loo wasn’t strictly necessary for _work_ purposes, but it was necessary for... _biological_ purposes. That much hadn’t changed, at least. Admittedly he probably could have waited longer, and maybe he just jumped at the excuse to stretch his legs a bit after staring at his computer monitor for what felt like hours on end, but.

To be fair, Martin hadn’t expected Tim to be in there when he entered.

He assumed it was Tim, anyway. He couldn’t see the majority of Tim’s body, given that he was in one of the stalls, but Martin vaguely remembered seeing those shoes on Tim earlier in the day, and there were only so many potential users of the men’s room in the Archives, anyway. His trousers were still on, from what Martin could see, not bunched up around his lower legs, and that didn’t change as Martin took a minute to process what he was seeing and think of an appropriate reaction, so...

“Are you seriously sitting on the toilet in here just so you don’t have to be in the same room as me?”

Martin regretted phrasing his question so bluntly when he saw Tim’s legs stiffen in response, though how much of Tim’s evident tenseness was due to the wording of Martin’s question and how much was just Martin’s presence being made clear was still up in the air.

For a moment, Martin thought Tim wasn’t going to dignify his question with a response, thought Tim was going to be silent and hope that he just went away, and while that wasn’t _ideal_ Martin was willing to follow through, but after Martin stepped closer to the facilities, Tim finally spoke up.

“Did you come here to kill me?”

“... _what_?”

“I _said_ , did you come here to kill me?”

A year ago, that might have been a joke that Tim bandied around in the work room, accusing Martin of plotting murder via too much tea or some such nonsense, a throw-away remark punctuated with a laugh. Now, Tim’s voice was deadly serious.

“Wha- no! No, of course not! Jesus, Tim, I’m not going to _kill_ you, I’m not going to kill _anyone_ -”

“Then piss off. I’ve made nice with a monster pretending to be a coworker for long enough, thanks. Not playing that game again.”

“I’m not-” Martin hesitated, considering his words carefully. He didn’t think he was a monster now, exactly--not the way Tim meant it, anyway, not like Prentiss had been--but, well, Tim _had_ seen him with eight eyes, and arguing that point seemed like a losing battle.

“I’m not pretending to be your coworker.” Martin said instead. “I _am_ your coworker. It’s still me, Tim.”

A brief pause before Tim responded. “But with freaky spider eyes.”

Martin leaned against the wall, grimy though it was--whatever they were paying their janitors, it wasn’t enough.

“...but with freaky spider eyes, yeah.” Martin admitted.

“And with freaky spider powers.”

That threw Martin for a loop. Had Tim found out about the spider space bar thing, then? Had- had _Jon_ figured it out already, and told Tim about it? Or did Tim manage to piece it together all on his own?

“...what d’you mean, freaky spider powers?”

“I think that’s what that was, anyway... I _hope_ that’s what that was. Hope I wasn’t just too much of a coward to run. Hope it’s not my own damn fault my throat closes up every time I try to tell someone what you really are.”

Martin bit his lip hard enough that he could taste blood as the meaning of Tim’s words washed over him.

“God, Tim, I...”

Martin tried to remember exactly what words he’d used when he’d spoken to Tim before, if anything had felt out of the ordinary when he’d spoken them. He’d told Tim to stop, and he’d stopped. He’d told Tim not to tell anybody about what he was, and apparently Tim had followed through there, too. He’d assumed it was a coincidence that Tim had actually listened and done what he’d asked, that or, or some strange stroke of luck... but he never was that lucky, was he?

“Please don’t give me some half-assed excuse for an apology.”

Martin gulped. “...I wasn’t going to.”

“Good.”

“I just want you to know I, I didn’t mean to? I just, I spoke without thinking, I just wanted to talk you out of telling the others-”

Tim snorted, though there was no true levity to the sound. “Sure, just like Jon asks questions purely out of idle curiosity.”

Martin bit his lip again, trying his best to ignore the tang of copper as he did so. He still thought Jon meant well, too, but... but Tim obviously had stopped believing that some time ago.

“Do you want me to... tell you you can say whatever you want to the others? Maybe I can do that, I can, can override what I did before by telling you something different-”

“And give you permission to do even more mind control in the process?” Tim let out a loud huff. “Hard pass, thanks.”

“...fair enough.” Martin thought silently for a moment. “What if I can- can prove it’s me? Something only I’d know, that sort of thing?”

“You can try.” Tim’s voice didn’t sound especially enthusiastic about the idea, and Martin couldn’t blame him--after all, Sasha had apparently been a monster for months now, and they hadn’t noticed anything was off--but he had to try, he had to do _something_.

“Remember when I was living in the Archives, and you came in--without warning, mind you, normal people _knock_ , Tim--and started speculating about how I clearly liked someone, and maybe I wouldn’t tell you who because it was someone in the Archives? You guessed Sasha, you guessed yourself... but you never even mentioned Jon.”

Tim snorted. “Guess I assumed you had better taste than to go for our asshole boss.”

Martin could feel his face heat up. “Well, then I guess you assumed wrong.”

After a moment, Martin added, “Is that enough proof for you?”

A long silence hung in the air before Tim responded.

“What if it’s not?” Tim’s voice was darkly serious. “What would you do then? Would you kill me?”

“Wha- Tim, no, we went over this, I’m not killing you-”

“Trap me in the loo for all eternity?”

“The only one trapping you in here is yourself, Tim, you can leave whenever you want. This isn’t _my_ doing.”

“Why’d you enter in the first place, then?”

Martin’s face heated up again, though for a very different reason this time. “I had to use the toilet! I still have to, okay? If that makes you uncomfortable, if you really don’t want to be in the same room as me, just leave so I can go already, and, and then you can come back after I’m done, if you want.”

“And if I leave the stall now, you won’t wipe my mind or, or do some spooky spider magic on me-”

“No, Tim. Absolutely not. I swear.”

A brief pause, and then the door unlocked and Tim emerged, his face pale, his eyes narrow and suspicious.

“For what it’s worth, I'm sorry.”

“Sure.” The sarcasm in Tim’s voice was bitter and biting.

Tim stayed as far from Martin as he could while approaching the bathroom door before bursting outside, his footsteps ringing out fast and heavy as the door slowly closed behind him.

Martin sighed and rubbed his (two) eyes for a long moment before heading over to use the facilities himself.


	10. Chapter 10

Martin was pleasantly surprised to find that Tim was sitting back at his desk when he returned, but a few minutes after Martin took a seat at his own desk, Tim got up--he didn’t run from Martin this time, thankfully, but walked at a pace only slightly faster than normal--and headed into Jon’s office, barging in without so much as knocking on the door beforehand.

(Apparently Tim still hadn’t learned that normal people knock.)

Martin tried to focus on his work, but he kept glancing over at the door to Jon’s office instead, wondering exactly what was going on in there, what was being discussed, and he started jiggling his leg without even realizing it at first, and he couldn’t concentrate on the research he should be doing because his mind kept drifting elsewhere...

He didn’t have to wait long for answers, though. Only a few short minutes passed before Tim left Jon’s office as abruptly as he had entered it, practically slamming the door closed behind him.

Martin watched Tim head back to his desk, saw his hands tensed up into loose fists now, noticed that Tim resolutely refused to meet Martin’s gaze.

Something had happened, clearly, between Tim and Jon just now, but Martin didn’t have a clue what. Was it just one of their rows that were becoming all too common lately, or something bigger than that?

But here, too, Martin wasn’t left waiting for answers all too long, as Jon eased the door back open and stuck his head out, calling out sternly but not harshly, “Martin, come in here.”

Martin’s stomach twisted in knots as he did as he was told, closing the door quietly behind him as he entered the office.

Jon didn’t look angry, exactly, or horrified, the way he might have if Tim had... well. But Tim _couldn’t_ tell Jon, could he? Unless he’d found a way around the command Martin hadn’t even meant to impose in the first place... in which case Jon would have even more reasons to be scared of Martin now than if things had come out another way...

“Please, take a seat.” Jon’s tone wasn’t unkind, but as Martin sat down in the chair in front of Jon’s desk, Martin still felt awfully like a schoolchild having to go to the principal’s office to confess his crimes and await a proper punishment.

“You wanted to see me?” It didn’t need to be a question, not really, but Martin wanted to be the one to start the conversation, and to do so in as innocuous a fashion as he could manage.

“Yes, Tim was just asking about you... well, he started by asking about Sasha, actually, wanted to know how I knew that she’d been replaced.”

Martin hadn’t thought about that much himself; he had assumed that whatever powers Jon had now had allowed him to see what the rest of them couldn’t, but now that Jon mentioned it, Martin was curious about the details. “...how _did_ you figure that out?”

“There were a few ways--Melanie seemed to know the difference, tried to tell me there were two Sashas, though it took me a bit to actually _listen_...” Jon massaged his temple gently. “But more importantly, the tapes show the difference. She-- _it_ hid the tapes that Sasha had spoken on before, because they still had Sasha’s voice on them, Sasha’s _real_ voice.”

“...huh.” That was interesting, perhaps fitting with how the tales of legitimate supernatural encounters never recorded digitally but could be saved just fine on their old tape recorders for whatever reason, but Martin couldn’t see how that’d connect back to him and Tim.

“And when I told Tim this, he wanted to hear your voice on tape, make sure it sounded the same as always. Evidently he thought _you_ might have been replaced, too.”

The knots that were Martin’s stomach tightened. “But I wasn’t, you know. It’s still me. My voice hasn’t changed.”

Jon nodded solemnly. “Yes, I know. I pulled out the tape of your statement about Prentiss’ siege, and we listened to it together--well, some of it, anyway. We didn’t even get to the statement proper, only a couple minutes in and Tim had evidently decided that that was enough for him.”

There was a lot to process there, and Martin’s head was swimming. Had Tim really thought Martin was as false as Sasha’s replacement had been, or was this some sort of attempt to warn Jon about Martin’s transformation without bringing it up directly? Why was Martin’s statement already in Jon’s office at the time rather than filed away somewhere where he’d have had to retrieve it? What made Tim decide that he’d heard enough of Martin’s recorded voice even before he’d given his statement?

The noise in Martin’s head quieted, however, as Jon looked directly at him--there was a weight to that gaze, one he could feel down to his bones.

“Tim didn’t tell me why he wanted to check on this so suddenly, though, or why you specifically were a cause for concern... Martin, is there anything you’d like to tell me now?”

And Martin could hear the static building in the background, could feel the weight of the compulsion upon him, knew he had to answer no matter what...

...But Martin could also see the loophole in Jon’s wording, now, knew how he could follow the letter of the law without following its spirit.

There were, of course, a great deal of things that Martin probably _should_ tell Jon now. Some of them were even things that he _wanted_ to tell Jon, on some level. But things he’d _like_ to tell Jon... well, none of the things that most weighed on Martin’s mind these days were things that he’d enjoy telling Jon about, even if deep down inside he knew he ought to do so.

The words still slipped out, of course, as they tended to do when Jon asked things these days, but they were indeed something Martin would _like_ to tell Jon about, rather than information about what Jon really wanted to know.

“I really quite like that polo you’re wearing today. I don’t think I’ve seen it on you before, I think I’d remember a shirt that striking, but while the colors are awfully bright they go together really well, and it looks really good on you...”

Martin still ended up blushing by the end of his rambling, but while it wasn’t information he would normally volunteer, especially at length like that, he did like telling Jon about his good taste in clothing. Everybody liked to be complimented on their outfits, after all, didn’t they? And that polo shirt really did suit Jon well, even if the colors were brighter than his usual stock.

Jon actually laughed a little at that, and though that undoubtedly made Martin’s blush all the brighter it was nice to hear. When was the last time he’d heard Jon laugh? Back when he’d been accusing Martin of murder only to find that his big secret was a forged CV? No, it had to have been more recently than _that_... but he couldn’t think of a more recent instance.

“Thank you, Martin. You’re right, usually I don’t wear this to work, always thought the colors were a bit too gaudy, but now... well, now I figure I’ve got bigger problems than potentially looking unprofessional.”

“And it’s not like Elias is going to dresscode us.” Martin added.

“Right you are.” Jon shook his head, a soft shaking laughter sneaking out of him as he did so. “Well, if that’s all... you can go now, Martin. Just wanted to check in with you after all that.”

Martin nodded, standing up almost immediately and then vaguely wondering whether that made him seem too eager to leave. “Alright then. I appreciate it.”

“And I appreciate you coming in here and humoring me.”

Martin kept smiling until he’d closed the door, putting Jon’s laughter behind him and subjecting himself to Tim’s suspicious glare once more.


	11. Chapter 11

Martin went back to his desk silently, and though he could feel Tim staring at him, Tim neither said a word nor made any sign of getting up. The tension in the air was palpable, though. Martin kept glancing over at Tim, checking to see if he was still there, to see how bothered he looked about being back in Martin’s presence, and Tim kept glancing back at Martin in return, though his glances were really closer to glares.

A few times, Martin caught Tim looking over at someone and opening his mouth, but not actually saying anything before he closed it again. Once, Tim caught Martin watching this happen, and if looks could kill, Martin would very likely have been struck dead on the spot.

(He’d offered his help, though. He’d offered Tim a way out. How much of all this was still his fault given that Tim had refused his offer?)

Tim wasn’t the only one Martin had to think about now, though. Maybe Jon would put together the pieces, figure out the truth that Tim had been alluding to, whether intentionally or accidentally. Maybe any real bond to be found in their relationship had just been broken before it could even form.

Should he have told Jon? Would it have been any better, admitting the truth of the situation now rather than putting it off indefinitely? _Could_ he have told Jon, given Jon’s unfortunate choice of wording in his question? Was lying by omission bad enough that Jon would hold it against him when all was said and done?

Martin didn’t know the answers, but just thinking about all the questions was enough to make his head swim.

It was not Martin’s most productive day at work, but then, that was rather to be expected, wasn’t it?

The evening after work went by in a blur, and soon enough it was morning, time for Martin to return to the Institute, and Martin knew it was probably a bad sign that he almost _missed_ lying in bed unable to sleep for hours on end, because at least that had given him some time to himself, even if he ended up sleep-deprived as a result...

Tim wasn’t there when Martin first arrived in the archives that day, but he turned up in a matter of minutes, glancing over at Martin before... sitting down and starting to do some research, by the looks of it. Tim actually doing his job shouldn’t have seemed like such a surprise, really, but apparently that was just the point they were at these days.

(To be fair, while Melanie worked hard enough on the research front, and Martin did _try_ at least despite many distractions and shortcomings, Basira, despite being an official archival assistant for days now, had yet to do anything besides read; she was on another new book today, by the looks of it, a nice thick hardcover whose name Martin couldn’t quite make out.)

Martin briefly thought about talking to Tim, trying to make conversation about what he was working on, but quickly thought better of it. Instead he remained silent, as did the rest of the archives for some time, the only noise made the flipping of pages or clicking of buttons.

Martin missed the old days, when it was him and Tim and Sasha (back when there had _been_ Sasha) and they were all friends, and they’d joke around in between tasks or chat about how things had been going, how their weekends had been... back when weekends meant something, as the archives crew had more or less given up on them some months back now...

The phrase _All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy_ occurred to Martin suddenly, and he shook his head as he tried to focus on his work again, to get that phrase and the implications thereof well and truly out of his head.

It was getting close to lunch time when Jon finally made an appearance, but he only stuck his head out of his office for long enough to say that he needed someone to go hunt down a few books in the library for him, even though it’d probably take a bit due to the library’s idiosyncratic organizational scheme. (Not that the archives staff really had much room to talk there...)

Martin really wished he had it in him to be surprised that Tim volunteered for the task immediately after Jon offered it up, rushing off to the library without even a hint of hesitation.

Martin gently sighed as Tim vanished from sight, but just as he was going to pretend like nothing had happened and go back to work, Melanie spoke up.

“What’s the deal with you two, anyway?”

Martin glanced briefly at Basira, who seemed as lost in her book as ever, before looking back at Melanie, who had gotten out of her seat and taken a few steps towards Martin’s desk.

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, you keep staring at each other without saying a word, like you’re each waiting for the other to- to sprout another head or something, it’s honestly kind of creepy-”

Martin scratched the back of his neck nervously. “...that obvious, huh?”

Melanie snorted. “You’re not as subtle as you seem to think you are.”

Martin gulped. “G-good to know, I suppose.”

“Especially with how Tim kept avoiding you after you asked about him, and after Tim went into Jon’s office he asked for you right after-”

Martin hadn’t actually considered how that must have looked to Melanie (and Basira) before, and he could feel his face heat up as he realized the implications there. “Yeah, I, I know how it all went down, don’t really need the reminder.”

“But you still haven’t answered my question.” Melanie took another step closer to Martin. “What’s going on between you two?”

Martin hesitated, his mind racing, and Melanie spat out, “And _don’t_ tell me it’s nothing, I’m smarter than that, thanks.”

“You’re right, it’s, it’s not nothing, but-”

But Martin wasn’t sure exactly what it was, and what he did know he certainly wasn’t going to tell Melanie right off the bat. Luckily, he was pretty sure he could cobble together a story that would make plenty of sense just the same. It didn’t have to be perfect, after all; it only had to last a few weeks at most.

“Just don’t-” Martin stopped himself from finishing that sentence, paused for a moment as he reconsidered his words. He wasn’t going to risk accidentally commanding Melanie like that, not when he’d seen what a mess it made before, when the fiasco it had caused and the divide it had cemented between him and Tim was the very subject he was discussing with her. “I’d- I’d appreciate it if you don’t go blabbing to Tim about all this? I think he’s a bit, er, sensitive about the subject, especially at the moment.”

Melanie put one hand on her hip, leaning slightly towards Martin in the process. “’The subject’ being?”

“Us? I mean Tim and myself-” Melanie made a strange face at that, and Martin could see exactly where her mind had went, and he hadn’t meant that, hadn’t anticipated that, and though it fit the story he was crafting well enough he scrambled to correct that impression. “Not like that, not like that! That’s actually kind of the problem, really, that it’s _not_ like that.”

Melanie raised one eyebrow. “Problem for which of you?”

“Tim, I suppose? Though now both of us sort of, since things are all kinds of awkward between us now and- I’m not explaining this well, am I?”

Melanie shook her head, loose strands of dark hair clinging to her cheeks. “You’re _really_ not.”

“Right.” Martin let out a choked sort of laugh. “So, so it started before you joined us, back when I was living in the Archives, and Tim burst into the room I was staying in and started speculating about me liking someone, which- which is not the point here, but the point _is_ , he made it _very_ clear that if I were interested in him, he’d be interested right back.”

At least, Martin was pretty sure that’s what Tim had meant with the whole “dance card’s open” thing, though it wasn’t the most common way of phrasing such a sentiment.

The best lies were based on the truth, at least in part, after all. Martin had learned that well enough already.

“I see.” Melanie still looked a bit skeptical, but her eyes were locked on his, focusing on his every move.

“And then he just... left the room after saying that, and we never really talked about it after that? At least not until, well, until Sunday happened. And the thing is Tim’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong, he’ll be a catch for whoever he ends up with, but that’s not going to be _me_. I don’t feel that way about him, I just don’t.”

“Christ, it’s like living in a romcom, isn’t it?”

The laughter that escaped Martin’s lips wasn’t entirely false. Melanie wasn’t _wrong_ , after all, was she? Though this would have to be a very strange romcom indeed...

“It is! And now we have to work together, and it was easy enough when we were just friends, but _now_...” As Martin let the statement trail off into oblivion, a thought occurred to him. “Actually, you know what, if you see Tim, maybe tell him that for me. Not the whole story, no need to rehash it all, but just- I miss being friends with him. Just friends. And I’d like things to be that way again, if, if we can make that work somehow.”

Melanie hesitated, and for a brief moment Martin remembered how Tim had hesitated when Martin had told him not to tell anyone about his extra eyes, and Martin started frantically hitting his mental rewind button, trying to figure out if he’d managed to do the same for Melanie just now despite his best efforts-

“No promises. If I wanted to be stuck in the middle of a romcom, I would’ve made a lot of different life choices over the years.”

Martin let out a sigh of relief and a bit of nervous laughter. “But you _might_ tell him that I’d like to be friends again?”

“If it comes up, sure, that’s a definite maybe.”

“Well, I’d... I’d appreciate that, Melanie, I really would. Thanks in advance.”

“Again, no promises. But you’re welcome, I suppose.”

As Melanie headed back to her desk, she spoke up one last time.

“God, I’m glad it’s something normal like that. I mean, I’m sure it sucks for you and all, but it’s good to know that in between ghosts and monsters and all that there’s still some regular old office drama going on, yeah?”

Martin bit his tongue a little as he forced down the laughter that threatened to surge up from within him.

“Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”


	12. Chapter 12

A few more days came and went without much happening. Martin kept waiting for the fallout from what he’d shared with Melanie, whether that was an emotional reunion with Tim or (much more likely) Tim cornering him in the hallway and insisting that they would never be friends again, but Tim just kept half-assing his archival work and taking every opportunity to leave the room and never actually talking through things.

Not the best possible outcome there, certainly, but perhaps not the worst, either.

Melanie and Basira kept to themselves for the most part, too, and Jon kept spending all his time tucked away in his office, though Martin made sure to bring him tea every day, partly in the hopes of improving his mood and partly just as an excuse to go in and see Jon again. Most days he was dismissed with a soft “Thank you” or a simple hand gesture, but that was enough.

Hyperaware as he was of any changes in this fragile status quo they’d established, Martin noticed that on this particular day Jon went up the stairs to the rest of the Institute and didn’t reappear down in the Archives for some time afterwards, but he tried not to think too much about it, didn’t breathe a word of what thoughts he’d had on the subject as he arrived in Jon’s office with tea in hand (hands, plural, really, as he held one mug off to the side for himself as he carefully placed the other onto Jon’s desk).

“Penny for your thoughts?” Martin tried his best to keep his voice upbeat and calm, to make it sound like just a casual inquiry that Jon could reject if he didn’t feel like talking through things with Martin.

Jon looked up at Martin and let out a low sigh, and for a moment Martin thought that that was all he was going to get out of Jon, and while that wasn’t ideal, he could live with that, just as he’d lived with similar dismissals for the past several days...

“Apparently they’ve decided who my future spouse will be.”

Martin was suddenly very glad that he had yet to touch his own mug of tea, because otherwise he most certainly would have spit it out at that comment.

Then he realized what it meant that not only had the decision been made, but Jon had been _told_ about it, and Martin’s blood ran cold.

He’d thought he had more time, was the thing. Martin thought that in time maybe he could try to drop subtle hints here and there about his new alignment, perhaps soften up Jon’s opinion of spiders a bit while he was at it, but now all those plans went out the window.

And yet Jon was looking at Martin as he always did, with an expression that was difficult to read but seemed to fall somewhere between curiosity and annoyance. Not disgust, not horror, not betrayal.

“And?” Martin did his best to keep his voice level, to sound calm and collected, to stop his hand from shaking too badly as it held a still-full mug of tea he hadn’t really wanted in the first place.

“And Elias won’t tell me who it is.”

Martin let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He still had time, then. It wasn’t over just yet. “Ah, I- I see.”

“Rather frustrating that he called a meeting just to not tell me the most important bit of information, but then, what else is new...” Jon shook his head and Martin tried not to stare, tried not to look too closely at the long strands of hair now scattered across Jon’s face, black and silver intermingled. “He did say he thought I would be ‘pleasantly surprised’, though. And then gave me that smirk he has where he knows something you don’t and he’s just lording it over you, you know the one...”

“Y-yeah, I know the one.” Martin’s head was reeling. Did Elias really think Jon would be pleasantly surprised by finding out that he’d be marrying Martin? Was he right in thinking that it’d be better for Jon to marry a spider person he knew than a spider person he didn’t? Or perhaps that was sarcasm on Elias’ part, sarcasm that had flown over Jon’s head because he didn’t know any better...

Martin didn’t plan on speaking up again, really, but he found himself doing it just the same.

“Well, think about it. Who would you be pleasantly surprised to have as a marriage partner?”

“I... I don’t know.” Jon closed his eyes briefly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just stopped being _wanted for murder_ , it’s not like I have a blossoming social life outside of this place...”

There was a conversation to be had there about how Jon had adapted to life on the run, who he had lived with (was still living with) when his own flat was suddenly off-limits, but it wasn’t one Martin especially wanted to have right now.

“Well, what about here at the Institute, then?” Martin scrambled to add more. “Tim, maybe? You two were always such good friends...”

“‘Were’ is the operative word there, I’m afraid. I think Tim might actually kill me if the alternative was us having to get married now.” Jon paused for a moment before adding, “Besides, I rather doubt Tim’s got any connection to the Web.”

“Right, well, uh...”

Two other options to ask about then, if he was sticking to Institute staff Jon interacted with regularly (Elias himself was _not_ an option in Martin’s mind). Martin wasn’t exactly the best judge regarding women’s attractiveness, but he figured it was probably a safe bet to go with the one who could actually carry on a conversation with Jon without it inevitably turning into an argument.

“What about Basira? She seems nice enough...”

“I’m not- why does everybody seem to think...” Jon massaged his temple for a moment as his speech trailed off before looking back up at Martin with a strange expression on his face. “Wait... is this about what I think it is?”

Martin’s stomach lurched. It was probably a miracle that he had managed to avoid spilling his tea during this whole conversation, that his hands hadn’t shaken enough to send the mug’s contents flying. “What d’you mean?”

“Martin, are... are you _jealous_ of my future spouse?”

There was no compulsion to the question, but Martin wasn’t actually sure whether that was a good thing. Part of him wanted to explain, to spill his guts without even having to think twice about it, but instead he just stood there, trying to muster up the courage to respond as he felt his face rapidly heating up.

“What? N-no, that’s, that’s not-”

“You _are_!” Jon made it sound like this was some sort of epiphany, using the sort of tone he usually only employed after a major research breakthrough. “Look, Martin, you don’t have to- to be jealous of the person I’m getting married to-”

“I’m not jealous! I-” Martin took a breath and tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke again, though he wasn’t sure that it worked. “I am _not_ jealous of your future spouse.”

“If you say so.” Jon didn’t sound convinced; apparently, Martin was better at lying than at telling the truth these days. “Either way, Elias did tell me a bit more about what to expect with all of this. Did you know he’s married to Peter Lukas?”

Martin blinked a few times, the urge to further deny his jealousy fading as he parsed what Jon had to say. “Peter Lukas, the- the guy who runs the Tundra?”

“That’s the one.”

“No, I, I didn’t know that.”

“Apparently it was a similar situation, more about connecting their patrons than about them specifically--and also Institute funding, maybe? They’re married, but they barely interact with one another, and whatever deal required them getting married in the first place must not have stopped them from getting divorced... several times over, in fact...”

“Elias said all that?”

“Well, the marriage and divorce part I already knew, actually, but... the point is, I don’t know what my relationship will be like. Maybe it’ll be like Elias and Lukas, where one of them’s not even around the other one most of the time... or maybe that’s because Lukas’ god is big on isolation, it’s hard to say. But it probably won’t be quite like a _normal_ marriage, at any rate.”

Martin knew that Jon was trying to comfort him, in a weird, roundabout way.

Martin wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about Jon being so nonchalant in discussing his upcoming marriage ( _their_ upcoming marriage), but it was pretty far off the mark from _comforted_.

“Don’t worry too much about it, Martin. We’ll see how things go soon enough. If we’re lucky, it won’t be long before...” Martin waited for Jon to finish the sentence, but instead, Jon just let it trail off into nothingness.

“Jon?” Martin prompted.

“Sorry, I... I was going to say ‘before things are back to normal,’ but what even _is_ normal here? Is dealing with Prentiss normal? Is having a monster as an assistant and not knowing it normal? Things haven’t really been normal for a while now, have they?”

“R-right.” Martin’s stomach lurched at the mention of Prentiss, and lurched again at the mention of one of Jon’s assistants being a monster. He meant the thing that replaced Sasha, Martin knew that, but... “J-Jon, I-”

“Yes, Martin?”

Martin looked at Jon for a moment that seemed to last for an eternity, took in the bags under his eyes, the scars both old and new, and the way he was looking up at Martin with interest, his dark eyes wide as he waited to hear what Martin had to say next...

Martin gulped. He couldn’t do it. Damn his cowardice, but he couldn’t make himself follow through with what he had meant to say, not when Jon was looking up at him like that, clinging to his every word.

“I, er, think it’s probably time I get back to work. Hope your tea hasn’t gone cold yet after all my yammering...”

Jon nodded. “Of course, of course. And I wouldn’t worry about that, though if it’ll make you feel better-” Jon paused and picked up the mug of tea that Martin had deposited on his desk, took a sip in a motion that Martin couldn’t tell if it was actually exaggerated on Jon’s part or if he was just imagining things. “It’s still fine. Thank you, Martin.”

“N-no problem. Any time.”

When Martin closed the door behind himself, still holding his own mug of tea that he hadn’t even wanted to begin with, he felt the mad urge to chuck the mug at some piece of furniture nearby, watch it shatter against a file cabinet or see its contents slowly stain the contents of a bookshelf.

Instead, though, Martin just sighed, clutched his mug even harder, and went back to work as if nothing had happened.


	13. Chapter 13

Martin wasn’t sure why he even bothered recording statements anymore, really.

Jon was back--back from being AWOL while wanted for a murder charge (that Martin had always _known_ deep down hadn’t been Jon’s doing), back in the Institute, back in the Archives. Sure, he spent most of his time away from the rest of the archives staff, locked up in his office, but... that wasn’t new for him, not _really_.

Maybe some of it was guilt, knowing that he was complicit in something that was upending Jon’s life, Martin wanting to do whatever he could to lift Jon’s load at least a little.

Maybe he just wanted to be helpful, truly helpful, rather than trying to do something nice and always seeming to bungle it up somehow.

Maybe he was just tired of staring at his computer screen.

Whatever his true motivations, though, the end result was the same: Martin was reading out a statement taken from a former Italian soldier some decades ago, getting caught up in the same fear and foreboding that had overtaken the statement giver back in the day--as if Martin didn’t have enough fear and foreboding to deal with in his _own_ life right now, as if what happened in some cave in rural Italy around the end of World War II even _mattered_ when there was so much else they had to deal with right about now...

And then, suddenly, the statement finished, and as Martin was released from it, it felt like a great weight had been taken off his shoulders.

Martin was sure he had been sitting up straight in his chair (well, not _his_ chair, but the chair he was currently seated in, in a side room of the Archives where his reading out loud was unlikely to disturb anyone) when he’d started recording, but he now realized that he’d slouched so much without his noticing that he was halfway to the floor.

“S-statement... done.”

He probably should have said “ends” instead of “done.” That was always how Jon did it, after all, a nice, cool, collected “Statement ends” right after reading off the latest ghastly supernatural tale. As if he wasn’t affected by it even the slightest bit, though Martin knew that wasn’t true, couldn’t be true.

How did Jon _do_ it?

Well. At least Jon wouldn’t have to keep his composure at the end of recording _this_ one. Martin could ensure that much, at least.

And as he sat there, his breathing loud and unsteady, his whole body trembling, arms shaking as he gently pulled himself back up to a more proper sitting position, Martin decided that _he_ wasn’t about to try to keep his composure for this one, either.

“I don’t like recording these. There. I-I-I said it.” Martin wished he sounded more calm and collected for the tape recorder’s sake, wished he could stop his voice from shaking as much as the rest of him as he spoke. “I’m sorry whoever’s listening to this, I know it’s unprofessional, but they f... I don’t like it. I guess we’re past professionalism now. Probably. I don’t even know why I’m still doing them, since Jon’s back now. I guess just nobody told me to stop? And I thought it might help Jon out, he deserves that much...”

He was rambling. He was rambling, and all of his rambling was going to be on tape, and this would probably have to be re-recorded in the end, and then he wouldn’t be saving Jon any work at all, now, would he...

Martin sighed a little, but once he started rambling, it was hard to get himself to stop. It was nice having something to spill his guts to, even if it was just a tape recorder. It was better than nothing, at least.

“It’s not- this isn’t new, either. It’s always felt like this. I mean, maybe it wasn’t this bad before... but maybe it was, maybe I’ve just forgotten how much the old ones took out of me too. Even before... things changed for me. If anything, I’d think that would _help_ with the statements--I think what they’re connected to has to do with, with eyes, right, and if _that’s_ the case, well-”

“Could you pass me that pen?”

The sudden and unexpected sound of Basira’s voice brought Martin’s train of thought to an abrupt stop, his stream-of-consciousness rambling replaced by incoherent, surprised spluttering for a moment before Martin could pull himself together enough to give a more proper response.

“Oh, er...” Martin made himself laugh a bit, though of all the feelings currently spinning through his head, _humor_ wasn’t really on the list. “Hi Basira... um, how long have you been there?”

Basira looked unruffled, Martin’s perfect opposite in that respect, one hand holding her book (another new one, by the looks of it) while the other was stretched towards Martin, still waiting for a pen to be placed within it. When she spoke, her voice sounded unruffled as well. “Erm, I don’t know. Couple of hours? Why?”

“Y-you... didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, I was reading.”

Basira still sounded like this was just... just another casual conversation to her. Maybe it was. Maybe she hadn’t heard his rambling, or had heard it but hadn’t put the pieces together to make out what he had actually been getting at.

Or maybe she was just playing it cool until she could go warn everybody else about how Martin’s _changed_ and it’s got to do with _eyes_ and-

Well. If that was the case, there wasn’t much Martin could do about it--or, well, there were things he _could_ do, but not things that he _would_. He wouldn’t stop her, wouldn’t shut her up like he inadvertently had done to Tim. If this was how it came out, this was how it came out, for better or for worse.

Martin cleared his throat in the silence that followed Basira’s explanation, more out of nerves than anything else, and she looked back at him with a gaze that might or might not have been suspicious.

“Did you need me?”

“No.” Strong start there, though Martin doubted he could follow it up as well. “Erm, I just... er, feel a bit... self-conscious?”

At least Basira’s gaze didn’t feel quite as judgmental as the one Martin was all too used to getting from Jon when he’d stammer his way through similar statements.

“About what?”

“Well, I was just, um, you know, doing a statement and notes and...”

“Ah.” The hand that Basira had been holding out towards Martin slowly fell back towards her side. “Was it... _good_?”

“You weren’t listening?” Martin thought his relief was more obvious in his voice than he’d like, but then, if Basira hadn’t listened to his post-statement notes she wouldn’t know _why_ he was relieved, and if Basira _had_ listened to them she wouldn’t be learning anything new from his stammering denials anyway.

Basira didn’t so much as blink before responding. “No, I was reading.”

“I just...” Martin trailed off, unsure where he had meant for that sentence to end up, but Basira didn’t hesitate to speak up when Martin quieted down.

“Erm, do you want me to find somewhere else to read? Somewhere more... I dunno, obvious?”

Martin shook his head. “No--sorry, you just surprised me, is all.”

“Sorry.” Basira didn’t sound particularly sorry, her tone the same casual, matter-of-fact one she’d used the whole conversation, but Martin certainly wasn’t going to quibble over the veracity of her apology, especially not when he had a lot more to hide here than she did.

“It’s okay. What are you reading?”

“ _Introduction to Alchemy_. It’s, um, really interesting, actually-”

Basira went on about the symbolism of alchemy, drew Martin into a conversation about the supernatural and their place within its scheme, but though Martin went along with it, played his part in their discussion, his head wasn’t really in it.

All Martin could think about was that he _definitely_ needed to get rid of that tape as soon as possible.


	14. Chapter 14

Martin stopped bringing Jon tea daily after the last time, after he’d had every opportunity to confess and he just... couldn’t bring himself to go through with it. He couldn’t make himself tell the truth around Jon, clearly, and he didn’t want to just go in everyday and _lie_ to him, so... so he was better off just avoiding Jon altogether, he figured, at least until he made a capital-P Plan for how to deal with the situation.

Given how small the Archives were, though, Martin not going out of the way to spend time with Jon didn’t mean the two were entirely isolated from one another.

Jon still dropped by to assign new workloads, for one thing, though as time went by it felt more and more like this job was just a giant pretense, like it wouldn’t make one bit of difference if they just sat at their desks and did nothing for several hours a day rather than actually helping out the Institute during their time spent on its premises.

(Martin still attempted to do his fair share of the work around the Archives, but he wasn’t terribly inclined to read any more statements out loud, not after the calamity he’d very nearly avoided last time he’d tried it. If Jon noticed either that Martin had been doing it before or that he’d abruptly stopped, Jon didn’t mention it.)

But even besides that, just being in such close proximity made interacting with one another downright inevitable (at least so long as one party wasn’t actively avoiding the other, anyway, and Martin wasn’t willing to go quite that far himself).

They bumped into each other in the break room this time. Martin had just retrieved the sandwich he’d brought from home (an attempt to save money, especially given how expensive all the restaurants clustered around the Institute were, but as he looked at the sandwich he could see how poorly-made it was, how sad it looked compared to what he could have gotten elsewhere) from the office fridge when he noticed that Jon was sitting at a nearby table, a half-eaten granola bar in his hand as he stared off into space and...

For a brief moment, when Martin looked at Jon and saw his neck wound half-open and streaks of red on his hand, he honestly thought that Jon was in the middle of tearing his body apart, that if he waited a few minutes longer there would just be a bundle of unformed flesh on the chair where Jon was sitting. Anywhere else such thoughts would be absurd, but given what Martin had read in the statement files, given what Martin had _seen_ in attack after supernatural attack within the Archives, it really wasn’t all that farfetched.

But then Jon pulled his hand away, taking with it only a tiny fleck of the scab that had formed over the wound on his neck, and Martin realized he was just picking at the wound absentmindedly. Not ideal, certainly, but normal enough that Martin breathed a soft sigh of relief even as he approached Jon.

“Christ, Jon, don’t _do_ that, you scared me for a bit there...”

Jon blinked rapidly a few times before redirecting his gaze up towards Martin. “Don’t do what?”

Was he seriously not aware of it? His hands had blood on them--not in some fancy metaphorical way, but literally, his hands were streaked with blood! And he was eating, too, the wrapper of his granola bar still cupped in one of those same hands... maybe Jon had stopped eating before picking at the scab, but the odds of that weren’t as great as Martin would have liked...

“Don’t-” Martin waved his hands vaguely in the direction of Jon’s neck. “Don’t pick at your bloody neck wound! Do you _want_ it to get infected? Because that’s how you get it infected, Jon!”

“Ah. Right.” The hand that had been hovering near his neck dropped back to Jon’s side, and Jon looked at his hands for a moment, as if seeing them for the first time. “...I suppose I should probably get a napkin, wipe off my hands.”

“You should probably _wash_ your hands, Jon, certainly before you take another bite, doing that while eating’s _really_ not hygienic--maybe get some plasters while you’re at it-”

Jon got up, thankfully, apparently taking Martin up on the idea of washing his hands at the nearby sink, though he added a quick “I don’t recall asking for your medical advice on the subject” as he turned away from Martin.

Jon probably didn’t mean much by the passing barb, but it hit Martin unexpectedly hard. Maybe he was sticking his nose somewhere it wasn’t wanted. Maybe he shouldn’t be shaming Jon for a bit of mindless picking at his body that he clearly hadn’t even been aware of until Martin pointed it out to him.

Maybe Martin’s connection to the Web, to manipulation and controlling others, was deeper already than just giving out a few commands. Maybe it wasn’t really _Martin_ , or at least Martin’s human side, that had thought to order around Jon, order around _his boss_ like that...

“...I’m sorry.”

Jon finished rinsing his hands, drying them on a nearby towel before turning back towards Martin. “Sorry for what?”

“For, uh... bossing you around like I’m your boss and not vice versa, I guess? Not that that means that much, really, I mean we’re all stuck down here together, regardless of who’s in charge of who on paper...”

Jon gave Martin a strange look, and Martin gulped before continuing.

“And for- for everything, really. For this whole situation we have to deal with together now. For all the parts I’ve played in making it worse instead of better.”

“None of this is your fault, Martin.” Jon’s voice was calm and level as he looked up at Martin.

“I mean... maybe not, but I feel like I could have done better? _Should_ have done better, perhaps?”

It wasn’t just his turning to the Web that Martin had in mind with those words; he’d made a few missteps along the way at the Institute, had his fair share of regrets even before that particular turn of events. His investigation into the Vittery case had been what brought Prentiss to the Institute’s doors in the first place, after all. He’d been tricked by Michael into entering its corridors, had wanted to help Jon but came back just in time to find a man dead in his office. He hadn’t been able to convince the cops of Jon’s innocence, hadn’t been able to save Jon from getting that neck wound from one of them in the first place...

So much had gone wrong so fast, and if Martin had only been able to do more... maybe things wouldn’t be in the state they were now. Maybe Sasha and Leitner would still be alive. Maybe the world wouldn’t be in danger. Maybe Jon wouldn’t have had to marry anyone in the first place...

Jon let out a soft laugh as he shook his head. “Well, that makes two of us, then.”


	15. Chapter 15

Martin tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was on a deadline, here, that one way or another he and Jon _were_ getting married one month after Jon had arrived back in the Institute in the first place.

It’s not that he forgot about that fact, because he never could let it escape his memory entirely. He just... avoided dwelling on it, when he could, made sure it never made its way onto his schedule, that he had some sort of plausible deniability in place.

He knew even without checking roughly how much time he had left, though, as the days turned to weeks, as he started to form a plan for how to make things right, at least partially. Martin knew that though he’d made a mess of things so far, there was still the better part of the month left to make it right before their wedding day.

(God, their _wedding day_. He and Jon were going to get _married_. It would be sweet, really, if it weren’t so terrifying.

Part of Martin wanted to talk to his mother about it, to invite her even, but a much larger part knew that he had a big enough mess to deal with as it was, thanks, no need to get _her_ involved too.)

It occurred to Martin at one point that since he evidently couldn’t manage to tell Jon out loud what was going on, perhaps he’d be better typing something up, maybe leaving a letter for him somewhere that explained it all. If he timed it right, he could either be there when Jon read over it or be well out of the way, whichever he ended up thinking was best.

Except that every time he went to type up some explanation of things, Martin just... couldn’t.

No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t like when he’d tried to quit--it wasn’t his own idea, wasn’t something Martin had really wanted to do at the time, but Tim had told him that it wasn’t possible and he’d been up for the challenge of disproving that idea--where he literally _couldn’t_ , couldn’t write the words down, couldn’t seem to type so much as a single letter as long as he went into it with the intent of quitting.

If that had been the case, if Martin really _couldn’t_ explain himself to Jon, it would have been easier, really; Martin could say it was the Web’s doing, was the spiders, was Annabelle Cane even perhaps, and rest content that he had done everything he could to set things right, even if that didn’t amount to much.

But it wasn’t that simple. Martin could write the words, could get a few sentences down even, and then... and then he inevitably picked it all apart, examined every word and phrase and clause and found flaws in every one until it was all torn to shreds and he was facing an empty document once again.

He wanted to come clean, really, he just... just couldn’t bring himself to bite the bullet and actually _do_ it.

Martin did start developing another plan, though. It was tentative and required on a few elements lining up just right, but perhaps if he went into Jon’s office as a spider again--after work sometime, ideally when Jon was off too, though when exactly _that_ would be was anyone’s guess--he could leave a note that he couldn’t just as easily delete...

What did it say about him that he was more willing to express his feelings as a spider, risking getting squished every moment he lingered in Jon’s office, than as a person, risking only rejection rather than actual physical harm?

Whatever the case, Martin was still figuring out when would be best to strike, how he could send a message while in the body of a spider, and what exactly he would want such a message to say, when he woke up one morning with the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

Was he being watched?

It didn’t feel like in the Institute, though, that vague yet omnipresent sense that someone was there, was watching, was _judging_ , which seemed to be even stronger in the Archives for some reason despite that being the one part of the Institute that wasn’t littered with cameras.

Martin felt like he was being watched, but not just in the general sense; he felt like someone was in with him, inside his own bedroom, just lurking and waiting and watching.

Which should be impossible, of course. He’d locked his doors and all that. He might not be as paranoid as Jon had gotten, but he wasn’t naïve, either.

And it certainly shouldn’t be possible for the feeling to be coming from above him, somewhere around where his ceiling meets one of the walls...

Martin flicked on the light switch, looked up to where he felt like _something_ was waiting for him, and had to silently suppress his instinctive urge to scream.

Annabelle Cane was on the ceiling of Martin’s flat.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


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